Register now to gain access to all of our features. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to contribute to this site by submitting your own content or replying to existing content. You'll be able to customize your profile, receive reputation points as a reward for submitting content.

Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) is an infection of the fallopian tubes, uterus, or ovaries. Most girls develop PID as a result of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), such as chlamydia or gonorrhea.

Each year more than 750,000 women will develop PID. Most of those infected will be teenagers and young women. Girls with multiple partners and those who don't use condoms are most likely to get STDs and are at risk for PID. If PID goes untreated, it can lead to internal scarring that can result in chronic pelvic pain, infertility, or an ectopic pregnancy.

Symptoms of PID

PID can cause severe symptoms or very mild to no symptoms. Girls who do have symptoms may notice:

Pain and tenderness in the lower abdomen foul-smelling or abnormally colored discharge
Pain during sexual intercourse
Spotting between periods
Chills or fever
Nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea
Loss of appetite
Backache and perhaps even difficulty walking
Painful or more frequent urination
Pain in the upper abdomen on the right

What Can Happen

Any girl with symptoms of an STD should get medical care as soon as possible. An untreated STD has a greater chance of becoming PID.
If PID is not treated or goes unrecognized, it can continue to spread through a girl's reproductive organs. Untreated PID may lead to long-term reproductive problems, including:

- Scarring in the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and uterus. Widespread scarring may lead to infertility (the inability to have a baby) and chronic pelvic pain. A teen girl or woman who has had PID multiple times has more of a chance of being infertile.

- Ectopic pregnancy. If someone who has had PID does get pregnant, scarring of the fallopian tubes may cause the fertilized egg to implant in one of the fallopian tubes rather than in the uterus. The fetus would then begin to develop in the tube, where there is no room for it to keep growing. This is called an ectopic pregnancy. An untreated ectopic pregnancy could cause the fallopian tube to burst suddenly, which might lead to life-threatening bleeding.

- Tubo-ovarian abscess - TOA, A TOA is a collection of bacteria, pus, and fluid that occurs in the ovary and fallopian tube.
Someone with a TOA often looks sick and has a fever and pain that makes it difficult to walk. The abscess will be treated in the hospital with antibiotics, and surgery may be needed to remove it.

How PID Is Diagnosed and Treated

If you think you may have PID, see your gynecological health care provider (your family doctor or nurse practitioner,
gynecologist, or adolescent doctor) immediately. The longer a girl waits before getting treatment, the more likely it is that she will have problems like the ones listed above.

- If a doctor thinks a girl has PID, he or she will do a physical exam, including a pelvic exam.The exam can reveal when someone has a painful cervix, abnormal discharge from the cervix, or pain over one or both ovaries.

- The doctor may also take swabs of fluid from the cervix and vagina, and this fluid will then be tested for STDs. He or she may also do apregnancy test. Sometimes health providers take blood or urine tests to look for signs of infection, including STDs like chlamydia and gonorrhea.

- Sometimes doctors need an ultrasound or CAT scan of the lower abdomen to see what's going on with a girl' reproductive organs. Ultrasounds are often used to diagnose a TOA or ectopic pregnancy.

- If it's found that a girl has PID, the doctor will prescribe antibiotics to take for a couple of weeks. It's vital to take every dose of the medication to completely treat the infection, even if symptoms go away before finishing the medicine. It's also important that girls with PID get rechecked 2-3 days after beginning treatment to make sure that they are improving.

Prevention Of PID

The best way to prevent STDs or PID is to not have sex (abstinence). For those who choose to have sex, it's important to use protection and to have as few sexual partners as possible.

- Using a latex condom effectively and consistently helps protect against most STDs.

- However, it's also very important to have regular checkups with your doctor. And if either partner has any symptoms of STDs, both partners should be tested and treated as soon as possible. So when you're making choices about sex, be smart and be safe.

Pelvic inflammatory disease is important to avoid because it can result in infertility or complications during pregnancy. Prompt treatment of a sexually transmitted disease can help prevent PID.

Yeast infection is a female genital disorder which is marked by white and clumpy or thick and milky discharge plus an annoying itch. Some of the things you can do to avoid yeast infection include:
1. Don’t wear very tight pants frequently
2. Wear cotton underwear
3. Change out of sweaty underwear, workout clothes, and wet bathing suits quickly

Blocked tubes are the No. 1 cause of infertility in Nigeria and pelvic inflammatory disease is the No. 1 cause of blocked tubes. If you suspect that you have a pelvic infection (symptoms include lower abdominal pain, pain during intercourse or a foul-smelling vag.inal discharge), you need to get it treated fast and aggressively; preferably by a gynaecologist. Don't think that because the symptoms have stopped that the infection is over because it probably isn't. Get treated now, you don't want to find out years later when you are trying to get pregnant!